Form and essence

#futurenotes Shape Thoughts Index

Vague thought about this:

The pair of concepts reminds me somehow of the interaction between a person (for example) and their environment. Person takes action, which shapes the environment, environment then helps to shape the future behavior of the person.

Or, the systems biology principle, as described by Fritjof Capra, that an oranism itself is a pattern with energy flowing through it. The matter of the organism replaces itself over time, it’s the pattern which is somewhat consistent.

In fact, these two ideas also strike me as the same thing on different levels. I think I might be struggling to complete this thought, though, because I’ve been getting form and essence a bit backward. In these metaphors, it’s the pattern/structure of the situation that would be the form…and in the platonic sense (as I understsand it) it’s not energy flowing through the form, but matter.

Maybe it’s both? Maybe these are three things involved (pattern, energy, matter), or maybe the energy and matter and fundamentally interchangeable.